NHS staff earning £100-plus an hour

Jan 3 2009 by Paul Loraine, The Journal

THE NHS is paying agency staff “hugely inflated” hourly rates to cover shifts, the Conservatives claimed yesterday.

Figures obtained by the Tories under the Freedom of Information Act showed some staff were paid hourly rates equivalent to salaries worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

But the North East’s health chiefs, from primary care bosses to hospitals, defended the place of agency staff, insisting they have a “key role”.

Some agencies were taking large “cuts” in return for supplying workers to the NHS, the data showed.

The Tories asked all NHS trusts to provide details of the highest amount they paid to an agency worker between May and October 2008 and received a response rate of more than 70%.

The responses revealed that County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust paid a consultant an hourly rate of £114.64 in September and October – a sum in proportion with a yearly wage of more than £220,000.

Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust paid a consultant £100 an hour between July and October while similar amounts were paid out by Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and County Durham PCT for a Paediatric consultant and GP cover respectively.

Non-medical agency staff were also called in with Newcastle PCT paying an IT technical lead £33.16 an hour from July to October and North Tyneside PCT paying an IT infrastructure engineer £24.67 an hour from May to October.

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, the North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust and Northumberland PCT also took on temporary workers.

A spokesperson for Newcastle PCT, North Tyneside PCT and Northumberland Care Trust said: “We have used agency staff when necessary to fill gaps or skills shortages as required. This is primarily due to difficulties in recruiting staff with the right skills to permanent positions.

“Temporary staff have, and continue to have, a key role in helping the NHS to respond to fluctuations in demand for services and in staff availability. Increasing the quality of, and achieving best value for money from temporary staffing is an important aspect of workforce planning in the NHS.”

Sir Len Fenwick, chief executive of Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, claimed the figures were no cause for concern.

He said: “These sort of figures will be more prevalent in the South East of the country, but for a trust like ours which has a turnover of more than £700m there is little reason for concern.

“This does not suggest that we are planning staff requirement on a short-term interim basis.”

Meanwhile Ann Stringer, Director of Human Resources at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Temporary staff have a key role to play in helping us respond to either fluctuations in demand for services or to staff absences.

“Using temporary staff means we can continue to deliver high standards of care to our patients at all times.”

The data did not show whether the workers came from privately-run agencies or from NHS Professionals, a non-profit agency set up by the Government to provide flexible staff.

However, they are most likely to be fees paid to private firms because NHS Professionals fees are standardised and comparatively low.

Most organisations were unable to say how the hourly rate was split between the worker and the agency, the Tories said.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: “Labour’s dithering and chaotic, short-term planning has let down NHS staff. Some stability for them is the least we would have expected from the billions that the Government has poured into the NHS.

“It’s incredible that agency staff can be paid such high hourly rates when jobs are being cut at the same time. This is typical of the waste that’s occurred under this Labour Government”.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “Temporary staff have, and continue to have, a key role in helping the NHS to respond to fluctuations in demand for services and in staff availability.

“Increasing the quality of, and achieving best value for money from temporary staffing is an important aspect of workforce planning in the NHS.

“We are spending less on agency staff year on year. The total pay bill spent on agency staff has reduced from 5.5% in 2003-04, to 4.2% in 2004-05 to 3.5% in 2005-06, 2.7% in 2006-07 and 3.2% in 2007-08.

“NHS Purchasing and Supplies Agency plays an active role in driving costs down and quality upwards through the development of Agency Framework Agreements and regular audits.

“The NHS Purchasing and Supplies Agency uses the NHS’s buying power to negotiate lower pay rates with agencies.

“NHS Professionals was set up with the aim of reducing the dependence on commercial agencies, improving the quality of staff provided and ensuring better value for money.”

Page 2: Tory questions on earnings